Ballmer: Adoption and Competition

Q&A: Part Two: The Microsoft CEO discusses with eWEEK why he feels this is a new day for Microsoft, as the company announces the availability of Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007.

Microsoft announced the availability of Windows Vista, Office 2007 and Exchange 2007 for businesses on Nov. 30, an event company CEO Steve Ballmer said was the "biggest launch we've ever done."

After delivering a media address at the Nasdaq Stock Exchange in New York to celebrate the product availability, Ballmer sat down with eWEEK Senior Editor Peter Galli and talked about, among others, projections for Vista adoption, the recent deal with Novell and non-deal with Red Hat, as well as the threat Google poses going forward.

A lot of reports are saying that much of Vista's adoption will be through new computer sales rather than through upgrades to computers within the existing ecosystem. You have also said before that Microsoft's own products are sometimes the biggest inhibitor to getting those people to upgrade. Are you aggressively targeting the existing ecosystem with marketing dollars and other programs to try and get them to move?

We will upgrade millions of machines, but you have to remember that analysts estimate we sell between 100 million and 200 million copies of Windows a year, and I don't think they expect 100 million upgrades a year.

We are going to do a very good job on upgrades but, yet, the most typical thing that will happen when people want to move to Vista is that it will be more common that they get it with a new machine, either at home or at work, than buy the upgrade.

But that doesn't mean we are not going to be pushing upgrades. While it is true that most people will upgrade when they replace their hardware, some will accelerate their hardware upgrade cycle because they are excited, and I think there is hope that we will also see a pick-up in PC sales.
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